Illustration: Tim King is doing an “A Drawing a Day” project to trump all others!

“A Drawing a Day” projects can often come a dime a dozen in the creative industries, but it’s very seldom that anybody actually sticks to them, or that they’re as brilliant as this one.

Tim King is a designer and illustrator, and he’s 102 days into his 365-day daily sketch project. Executed in a number of colours and with no small dose of humour, wit and a degree of observation which excludes all but the most dedicated of people-watchers, his effort so far has been commendable. So far we’ve seen some dodgy jokes, lots of trips to the pub and a comic-book like narrative created through captions that does well to resemble London’s noisy chaos. Even better, many of the existing sketches bear the kind of marks, stains and tears that serve as “evidence” of the integrity Tim King is keeping with the project. We can’t wait to see what kind of state they’re in by day 364…

Illustration for educational books has become ever more inventive in recent years, diversifying a medium that has vast creative potential, and Wide Eyed Edition’s recent release Illumanatomy is symbolic of this shift. The large format book is filled cover to cover with full bleed, intricate, three-colour illustrations by Milan-based duo Carnovsky depicting the human body in three layers. Using a set of lenses that come with the book, you can see the skeleton (through the red lens), the muscles (through the green lens) and the organs (through blue) and learn facts about the details of each image. It uses a technique made famous by Carnovsky in 2010 for its RGB wallpaper that revealed different images under different lights.

“Doing editorial work is a lot like going to bootcamp. Once you hit the ground, you have to run as fast as you can in 24–30 hours and hopefully get to the finish line in one piece,” says illustrator Saiman Chow on his editorial commissions. “There’s no time to overthink it and despite the time constraints, it’s a great way to train yourself to trust your intuition.”

For our World Mental Health Day takeover, we tasked Tel Aviv-based illustrator and animator Ori Toor with visualising a complex and sensitive topic. “I wanted to show the intricate mind of the creative person,” he explains of his interpretation of the brief. “I made it a bit personal, as I do with most of my work – overall it’s joyful but at the same time trying to keep the darker side under control. I wanted to create a balance between happy and sad.”

Back in spring, we first featured the work of Tishk Barzanji, who revealed that his pastel-hued interiors spoke of an underlying anxiety. This month the Iraq-born visual artist is set to take over Hackney venue Palm Vaults alongside illustrator Charlotte Edey for Quiet Utopia, a joint show which, using Tishk’s signature surrealism, will explore “the importance of introspection” through large scale digital works, illustrations and woven tapestries. We caught up with the pair in the lead up to the show’s launch to talk about the ways in which introspection and isolation can be a useful part of the creative process in a world where we are never not connected.

When talking to Mexican artist and illustrator Rachel Levit about this piece for World Mental Health Day she sent over a folder of archive work that illustrates sensitive content. We knew before hand that Rachel had an eye for illustrating subjects with a delicate story, but when looking through her selection a distinct style was noticeable. This is a style that hints at a tender personable thought, but also remains relatable to anyone, male or female, young or old, and whether they have had troubles with mental health or not.

Illustrator Lorenzo Gritti uses little colour in his works, instead putting the emphasis on the sparse elements he includes. “I know I prefer atmosphere rather than details. I like a sort of cleanliness in my illustrations, with a few bold lines and strong background colours,” says Lorenzo. The illustrator says he learned to draw from looking at old comics from the 40s and 50s. “It has always amazed me how you can put an entire universe in a tiny rectangle, creating atmosphere in black and white, separating the spaces by shadows,” explains Lorenzo.